Port of Tacoma v. PQ LLC: Successor-Liability Fight Over Legacy Industrial Contamination
The Port of Tacoma sued PQ LLC, as successor to prior operators of a sodium-silicate production facility on Port-owned Tideflats property, seeking to recover close to $10 million in cleanup costs after a 2016 cost-sharing agreement between the parties collapsed in April 2025. PQ LLC has countersued, arguing the Port's claimed costs improperly include contamination unrelated to PQ's own historical operations at the site.
Why it matters
The dispute is a direct successor-liability fight over legacy industrial contamination on port-adjacent land, and PQ's countersuit highlights the recurring causation-allocation fight at sites with multiple historical operators and mixed contamination sources. It is a cautionary example for industrial and port-adjacent landowners negotiating cost-sharing arrangements with historic site operators to build clearer causation-allocation terms into those agreements up front.
Case timeline · 3 entries Latest: March 27, 2026 — PQ LLC countersues, disputing the scope of contamination costs attributed to it
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